Paul McBride QC brands George Foulkes MSP a “joke”

A TOP QC who sparked controversy by switching his political allegiance to the Tories last night branded a top Labour Peer “a joke”.

Paul McBride QC, 44, withdrew his support of the Labour Party last week to join the Conservatives claiming that he had lost faith in their “incompetence”.

Mr McBride – now tipped for a top government job if David Cameron’s party come to power – had previously been a Labour party supporter for almost three decades.

Labour Lothians MSP George Foulkes hit back at his defection by claiming he as a long serving party member had never seen Mr McBride at any fundraising functions for 20 years.

Yesterday (Wednesday) Mr McBride dismissed the MSP’s crticisms and insisted he had been to “many” over the years.

Mr McBride said: “I can only say that the Lord Foulkes is regarded as a bit of a standing joke at Holyrood.”

He added: “I have never met the man and the fact that he has not seen me at any of the dinners – many of which I have attended over the years – doesn’t mean that I haven’t been there.”

“There may have been perfectly obvious reasons why Lord George Foulkes hasn’t seen me at those dinners – either because he hasn’t been there or because he has been distracted by other things or unaware of what was going on around him.

“I don’t attach any significance to that.”

Mr McBride also rubbished suggestions he had claimed to be an actual member of the Labour Party before he joined the Tories – saying he had simply been a long term party supporter.

He added: “I wasn’t a member of the party, I was a party supporter. I had been a member in the past but that had lapsed several years ago.

“I was simply a supporter so the story was total rubbish.”

Mr McBride – who it is believed is in line to be advocate general should the Conservatives succeed in a general election – also dismissed Labour as “incompetent”.

He said: “I thought about it for a long time, difficult decision to make but decided that the Labour party was quite frankly finished in terms of policies nobody believed a word they said about anything anymore and they were serially mendacious and incompetent.”